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God’s Spirit expects our cooperation

Cover of Bowen’s Daily Meditations

Today's Devotional

And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes—Ezekiel 36:27 (KJV).

[This verse is] a sublime expression of sovereignty; but let none therefore say, “We must remain as we are until he puts his Spirit within us.” For God observes a process in this as in his other works; and in every step of this process he requires the co-operation of man. He shows an individual that he is without the Spirit of God—that he is spiritually dead, excites in him desires after life and blessedness, shows him what he is not to trust in, what he is to trust in, teaches him to pray, answers his prayer, and excites in him faith in the Lord Jesus. Then only perhaps does an individual discover that he has been influenced throughout by the Holy Spirit. But he who refuses to do anything until he is sensible of the Spirit’s influences, will never do anything in the way of working out his salvation.

About the author and the source

While a young man, George Bowen became an infidel. After eleven years feeding his mind with atheist literature, he was deeply impressed by the joy he saw in a young woman who discovered Christ on her deathbed. He prayed that God, if there were a God, would show him what to do. Shortly afterward, a librarian gave him William Paley’s Evidences by mistake—he had requested another book. He read a little, was impressed by the power of Paley’s arguments, and finished the book. His arguments against Christianity crumbled and he yielded to Christ, renouncing his wealth and becoming a missionary in Bombay, where he lived in absolute dependence on God.

George Bowen. Daily Meditations. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873.

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